California Seafood : Simple Fare Requires Care

Friends were coming in from out of town for a long weekend of wining and dining. Great bottles were packed, serious reservations were made. Still, the first lunch was left up to me.

Facing three days of meals in fancy restaurants, what could I do to compete?

Go to the growers market, what else? As a home cook, I may not have a full staff on hand to help me prepare elaborate dishes, but just let some kitchen-bound chef try to out-shop me.

In half an hour, I’d picked up a bag of squeaky-fresh zucchini, some beautiful swordfish and a couple sacks of dead-ripe peaches, plums and figs. The fruit I washed and set in a bowl in the refrigerator for a quick chill. An avocado I had ripening on the counter got smooshed onto some toast for quick crostini to keep folks from starving.

The meat of the meal--sauteed zucchini, sliced tomatoes and swordfish with fennel seeds--couldn’t have been simpler. With great ingredients, the less you do, the better.

That’s not to say cooking simple food is easy. When you’re paring dishes down to their essentials, every detail has to be carefully attended to. In a dish like swordfish with fennel seeds, which has only five ingredients (including salt and a final squeeze of lemon juice), the accuracy with which you cook the fish is vital. And if what you’re trying to get across is the wonderful flavor of good zucchini, you’d better get it right.

Actually, mine is a somewhat heretical approach to zucchini cooking. The current wisdom, received from chefs on high, is that you should pick baby zucchini and barely cook them, serving them prettily arranged, nearly crisp. This is a bunch of hoo-ha. It may make for a nice plate, but it’s not much on the palate.

Although you certainly don’t want to cook with baseball bat-sized zucchini, which are mainly water and seeds, baby zucchini haven’t developed their flavor yet. Barely cooking the squash only accentuates that. I like my zucchini cooked enough that it is just softened. Call it almost flabby, if you like, I prefer to think of it as truly “al dente.” (When have you eaten correctly cooked pasta that was raw in the middle?)

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When buying zucchini, freshness is much more important than size. Any zucchini less than an inch in diameter will do fine, but what’s most important is the way it feels. As anyone who has grown zucchini knows, really fresh squash is nearly rock-hard and is covered with very fine, very itchy fuzz. If the zucchini is soft or smooth, the results won’t be as good.

When you get the zucchini home, take half an hour before cooking to soak it, with the ends trimmed, in ice water. This is a Marcella Hazan trick that Ifind really improves the texture.

In a recipe this simple, how you slice the squash is as important as almost anything else. Cut it too thin, and it will fall apart as soon as it cooks through. You want it to be thick enough to soften, yet sturdy enough to hold together during the cooking.

When it comes to the swordfish, paying attention to details is just as critical.

After all that has been written about buying fresh fish, the bottom line comes down to: You’ll know it when you see it. Really fresh fish--whether whole or fillet--has a glossy “alive” look. Certainly, you can smell it as well and look at the gills and eyes and all of that. But once you learn to recognize the shiny healthy look of that flesh, you’ll never forget it.

The key to cooking fish is knowing when to stop. Although there are those who like fish raw in the middle, I prefer it medium-rare, so that it is juicy but still cooked through. That is not so hard to achieve with a fish that flakes easily, like sea bass or sand dabs or even salmon.

But with firm, meaty fish like swordfish, shark and tuna, it’s tougher. Cook it until it flakes, and you’ll get a dry piece of fish. Instead, you need to use your sense of touch . . . and a good sharp knife. After the fish has been lightly browned on both sides, gently poke the knife down into the cut-side of the steak. You’ll feel it give easily on the outside, then meet resistance as it hits the uncooked connective tissue.

Put the fish in a moderate oven to cook through and keep testing every minute or so (even the thickest steak probably won’t take more than 15 minutes total cooking time). As soon as the knife slips in easily, remove the fish from the pan, squeeze in the lemon juice and let it sizzle for a minute, then pour it over the fish.

Simple as that.

SWORDFISH WITH FENNEL

This is adapted from a recipe in Carlo Middione’s “The Food of Southern Italy” (Morrow: 1987). In the original, Middione uses tuna and twice as much fennel to make what is essentially the aquatic equivalent of steak au poivre. Swordfish being somewhat more delicate in flavor, I like it with much less fennel.

1 1/4 pounds swordfish, cut in 4 thick steaks

Salt

1/4 cup olive oil

2 tablespoons fennel seeds

Juice of 1/2 lemon

Rinse and carefully pat dry fish. Season each steak lightly with salt on both sides. Set aside at room temperature for 5 to 10 minutes to marinate.

Pour oil in bottom of heavy skillet, preferably non-stick, and place over medium-high heat. Spread fennel seeds in even layer across bottom of skillet and let cook until seeds just begin to color.

Place swordfish steaks on fennel seeds and cook until lightly browned on one side, about 5 minutes. Turn steaks over, placing on remaining fennel seeds, and continue cooking until lightly brown on second side, about 3 minutes. Put skillet in 350-degree oven to finish cooking. Thin sharp knife just should penetrate fish easily when done, about 5 minutes. Do not overcook.

Place steaks on warm platter and add lemon juice to pan over high heat. Let sizzle, then pour over steaks. Serve immediately.

Makes 4 servings.

Each serving contains about:

271 calories; 252 mg sodium; 44 mg cholesterol; 18 grams fat; 3 grams carbohydrates; 23 grams protein; 0.46 gram fiber.

ZUCCHINI OF THE GODS

Too much zucchini? Impossible with this recipe. I sometimes eat a big bowl of it by myself for dinner. You’ll never taste zucchini better.

2 pounds zucchini, about 1/2- to 3/4-inch in circumference and 5 to 6 inches long

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 whole cloves garlic

Salt

1/4 cup water

1 tablespoon thin sliced basil

Trim ends and soak zucchini in large bowl of cold water 20 to 30 minutes.

Remove and pat dry. Cut zucchini in half lengthwise, then in quarters crosswise. In skillet, place zucchini, oil, garlic, 1 teaspoon salt and just enough water to cover bottom of skillet. Cover and cook over medium heat until zucchini begins to soften, about 5 to 7 minutes. Remove lid and raise heat to high. Cook, stirring, until liquid evaporates and zucchini glazes with olive oil.

Remove garlic cloves, carefully stir in basil (zucchini will be somewhat fragile), and serve.

Makes 4 servings.

Each serving contains about:

94 calories; 81 mg sodium; 0 cholesterol; 7 grams fat; 7 grams carbohydrates; 3 grams protein; 1.04 grams fiber.